Local and trunk switching centers generally have access to external or integrated devices for producing announcements. Such announcements may be simple system announcements (for example: “number unobtainable”) or announcements composed of individual fragments (for example: “This subscriber's telephone number has changed, the new telephone number is 123456”). Even complete dialogs for identification and activation of the desired function are offered in conjunction with the handling of intelligent network features (for example: calling card service) or for controlling subscriber service features by the subscriber (for example: block outgoing calls), with the aid of an announcement technique and DTMF/speech recognition.
Until now, the announcement and speech recognition data records required for this purpose have been subject to changes only very rarely, but the present-day competition between network operators has led to the frequency of changes to these data records having increased to a major extent:
For example, announcements must have up-to-date and informative contents. (For example: up-to-date advertising announcements from the company for callers who are waiting for a free line to this company's call center). It must be possible to produce dialogs for new services quickly, and this necessarily results in a more frequent need to change the announcement element and the keyword stores for the speech recognizer. In the same way, up-to-date information for fax retrieval when a large number of subscribers are calling at the same time must be produced on a daily basis (for example: television programs with additional information by fax retrieval).
In order to achieve the maximum level of flexibility, the network operators and their customers can, using the prior art, generate the databases associated with them by means of their own infrastructure (for example the customer's PC environment) and without any devices in the switching network, and can then supply these (for example by means of an ISDN dialed connection or via the Internet) to the announcement and dialog devices in the telecommunications network. By way of example, the major customer of a network operator can in this way update his announcement by transmitting the announcement (which has been produced on his PC) with the latest advertising content via a dialed connection to an announcement device, or simply by speaking the new announcement to the announcement device, using a telephone terminal.
In order to make it possible to produce such information, which is provided from devices in the telecommunications network, with sufficiently little blocking for large scale retrieval, this information is offered simultaneously by a large number of devices in the telecommunications network, with these devices also being distributed physically. The switching center which is associated, for example independently of the source, with a current connection request, in order to provide an announcement, dialog or fax retrieval, is in general accessed on the basis of a standard telephone number, which is applicable throughout the network, with functions being implemented by the intelligent network. This can be done, for example, based on the shortest route for the connection between the subscriber and the selected switching center providing the desired announcement, fax or dialog function.
The updating processes mentioned above relate to the databases stored in these devices. The updating process is preceded by an authorization check using a personal identification number (PIN), in the same way as any associated dialog with the user. After the updating process, a trial activation can be carried out, which is likewise controlled by the operator (for example monitoring the announcement or trial activation of the speech recognizer for new keywords). After this, the new database can be activated throughout the network. At this time, at the latest, it is necessary to make the updated data available both in the same switching center and throughout the network to all the announcement, fax retrieval and dialog machines associated with that respective network customer.
This results in the following technical problem:
How can the database (which is loaded in an announcement, fax retrieval or dialog device in a switching center for the purpose of trial activation) for an individual network customer be made available in the same switching center and throughout the network to all the announcement, fax retrieval and dialog devices associated with this customer, without the customer explicitly needing to address the devices involved and having to carry out and monitor sequential transmission of the updated database at the customer end? A further problem that arises in this case is that fault situations in the network (for example failure of a switching center or of a device that is involved) or changes to the network topology (for example extensions to the announcement capacity in the switching centers) can affect the operator interface of the announcement, fax retrieval and dialog customer, and may thus necessitate specific action. A further problem is that time restrictions (for example changes relating only to specific times of the day) or dependencies on the network operator (for example the use of maintenance personnel) exist and, finally, there is a risk of data being lost.
In the prior art, this has resulted in the installation of service devices in order to solve this problem. These are referred to as intelligent peripherals IP and are integrated either in the network nodes or in the peripherals of the switching centers.
However, a solution such as this results in the problem that changes which a network customer wants to make to his database are loaded exclusively by the network operator into the entire network, since only the network operator is able to address those switching centers which are relevant for the respective network customer and the large number of peripheral devices which are contained in these switching centers and have an integrated IP function. This results in time delays, out-of-date data, and dependency on the network operator.